


Bundle of Joy

by hannelore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-31
Updated: 2004-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/pseuds/hannelore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily's not ready to be pregnant, but the stick doesn't lie, sing or talk, much to James' surprise. Someone else altogether is even more pleased by the news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bundle of Joy

"What is this?"

Lily, groggy, pulled the covers away from her face. James came into fuzzy view, but it was the bacon and egg that hit her first.

"James," she said, feeling the nausea hit. "Go away."

He only waved the white stick with a vague attempt at a swish and flick.

"Some sort of wand?" James said, the messy egg and bacon biscuit dripping in one hand. "Abracadabra, get out of bed!"

Lily started to respond, but instead leaned over the bed and threw up.

*

"Look, I said I was sorry. I didn't know you were sick."

She was back in bed, sheets clean, a pot on the floor and a much more sympathetic James at her side. Lily grumbled and reached out a hand. James put his hand in hers, but she pulled her palm away.

"James, the stick."

James handed it over to her.

"Are you going to tell me what it is or continue to be so ruddy mysterious?"

Lily took the pregnancy test from him with a wan smile. She had owled her mother to send it to her, she didn't trust the magical ones. Not to mention half of them promised to sort the unborn child into a Hogwarts house, guess the hair of their future wand _and_ cure warts. Lily just wanted a simple answer: yes or no.

"You weren't supposed to find it," Lily said, giving it a vague wave. Maybe if it really was a wand, she could wave it and make one line disappear. "I'm pregnant, James."

James stared at her, then to the stick, then back to her.

"How can you tell from that thing? Does it talk?"

Lily snorted and pulled the covers up over her head for a moment, her voice muffled from beneath.

"Honestly, you are such a wizard sometimes. Believe me, it's true. I am."

"You... you're not happy?"

Lily jerked the covers down.

"That's not it! We... we said we were going to wait. You told me that potion was guaranteed!"

"It was, I swear. Benjy Fenwick said that studies showed that when given to 200 Knockturn Alley prostitutes, none of them --"

"All right, all right, I believe you." She twisted the edge of the covers in her hands, looking up at him with anxious eyes. "I'm just not ready. Everything with the Order, how am I going to do anything if I'm as huge as a whale? I've been training so hard, I just... I'm not ready."

*

James didn't tell her that he had been ready. Every baby he saw in the arms of one of their friends, he had felt the ghost of what he wanted to hold. Yet Lily's wishes always whispered wait. The war was worse than ever, would they want to bring a child into this world? But in every new pair of eyes, James saw promise. Lily only saw restraints. She could see that familiar hesitation in his eyes.

"It's easy enough for you to be pleased," Lily said, hurt. "You can still go and do whatever you want."

"I'll stay with you," James promised. "I won't go out on raids, I won't go scouting. I'll stay with you, even before you have the baby."

Before Lily could answer, an owl flew in with the post. The letter was from Frank Longbottom and it was tinged with the same hesitant excitement and worry. Alice was pregnant, they'd just found out the news. He wouldn't be terribly good at magic (oh dear, Lily thought. Wizarding pregnancy test), but he would have a good heart.

"Didn't Alice use the same potion?" Lily asked.

*

Albus Dumbledore clapped the loudest when Lily and Alice announced the good news at the next Order meeting. He had worried that it wouldn't work.

Albus knew both young women, the kindly old gentleman was always available to be an ear for worries and fears. Both of them had unburdened what they could not tell their own husbands. They did not want children, not yet. They wanted to be on the front lines and fight. Bold, wise-cracking Lily. Alice, short and diminutive, but would not back down an inch. The two women together could put most boys through their paces when it came to spells and charms.

Even though they could tell the most off-color jokes as anyone, they both blushed when they asked Albus Dumbledore for something that would prevent conception. They were already taking something that most wizarding women took, a potion that Albus knew was mostly two parts honey and one part hope. But the tincture that he had was the true product, but not for the way they wished.

Only a week and both women had conceived.

It had gone better than he'd thought.


End file.
